


Have, Not Hold

by Aurae



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Exchange Assignment, F/M, Fixing the past, Force Ghost Ben Solo, Gen, Hope, Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019, Philosophizing about Attachment/Non-Attachment, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22271758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/pseuds/Aurae
Summary: Rey may get to keep something she thought she’d lost to the past…ifshe can learn how to let go in the present.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	Have, Not Hold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambiguously](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/gifts).



> _“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” — Yoda in Episode III_

She can feel them. All the Jedi. The Force is pure energy, after all, and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change its form.

So yes, she can feel them. Masters Yoda, Kenobi, Luke and Anakin Skywalker. And all of the other Jedi whose names are not known to her. She even feels Leia, _her_ Master, warm and smiling.

But she cannot feel Ben. When she reaches out for him—nothing, nothing, nothing. He is not with her; he does not come to her; and he does not take her hand across the vastness of space. No matter what she does or how hard she focuses her mind, Ben, and Ben alone, is a void. An emptiness in the universe that had once been full. An emptiness inside of her.

She tells herself that the loss doesn’t matter. That she doesn’t need him anyway. And it’s true—she doesn’t _need_ him.

But still. Rey cries herself to sleep sometimes with _want_.

***

“Rey Skywalker is a terrible name.”

“Says the man who decided to call himself ‘Kylo,’ ” Rey replied, drier than the Jakku desert.

“You’re holding onto the past. It would be better if you just let go.”

“Oh, who cares?” Rey sighed. So what if she missed him? She wasn’t afraid to admit it to herself anymore. She missed feeling him in her mind at every waking moment, always there, impossible to wholly ignore, like a pebble inside a shoe. It probably said something not terribly flattering about her, however, that whenever she dreamed about Ben he always seemed to be criticizing.

“ _You_ care, and that’s my point,” he continued. “You’ve always held onto things too tightly. It’s your greatest weakness.”

“Why can’t I have fun sex dreams like everybody else?”

Ben ignored that. His expression remained mild. He’d heard her joking complaint and its implications loud and clear, but he was unmoved. Unfazed. That was very different from Kylo Ren. “There’s something I want to show you, if you’ll allow…?”

Rey sighed again. “Fine. Be my guest. Show away—”

_“Come baaaack!!”_

She gasped as the bright light of the sun reflected off the desert sands stabbed into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. As she blinked her vision back again, she realized that she’d been returned to that awful moment in her childhood when her parents had left her behind. She saw herself again, a little girl of six standard years, tear-stained and screaming, reaching out, straining hard for the departing ship—

But something was different. The ship wasn’t moving. It was hanging in the air. Had time stopped? Rey turned to look at her younger self again, expecting that tableau to be frozen as well—

No. _No_. Her child self’s was still straining, reaching out for her parents, face twisted with fury and desperation and fear of loss. Panic was sweeping through her like a herd of racing fathiers. She’d be running pell-mell after that ship if Unkar Plutt weren’t stopping her. She was terrified of being left all alone, and pure, animal instinct made her want to hold on at all costs. She was using the Force to overpower twin repulsorlift engines and pull the ship back down to the ground—yes, look! Her child self was slowly but surely succeeding in pulling it back down to the ground—

“Wait,” Rey began. A terrible premonition. _Ben._ Where was he? She needed to ask him if… If this was… “Is this really—”

A deafening crash of lightning erupted from her child self’s fingertips, and her parents’ ship exploded in a ball of fire.

She felt her mother and her father die. She’d been the one who killed them.

Rey woke up screaming.

***

Although she couldn’t avoid sleep entirely, it was possible to delay the inevitable with a combination of Force meditation and sheer bantha-headed stubbornness. And so she delayed it at long as she possibly could.

And when the inevitable arrived, as it inevitably did, Rey had one question:

“Was that real?”

“Are you ready for a do-over now?” Ben answered with a question of his own instead.

“What do you mean, ‘a do-over?’ What’s past is past. The past can’t be changed, and don’t I know it—”

_“Come baaaack!!”_

And here she was again. Well, she had been expecting it, pretty much. But this time, she wasn’t an invisible spectator; instead, she realized, she’d been returned to the body of her child self.

A tsunami wave of adrenaline crashed through her. Panic and fear. Desperation. But she was more powerful than she’d been back then, right? She had better control. Concentrate! Use the Force! If she could just hold on and bring the ship back down without destroying it—aaahhh, but the engines were cold fusion reactors, and they had elemental power driving them forward—no, she had the Force, and she was the stronger, no no noooo she would _not_ allow the ship to escape this time—

“Let go, Rey.”

Rey half-turned, startled. Where once Unkar Plutt had held onto her arm, tight enough to bruise and almost break, now Ben was holding her. His touch was so loose and light she could hardly feel it. And yet, he was holding her back.

“Dammit, Ben, not now,” Rey cried, her child self’s voice shrill and small. She tried to shake his arm off, but, failing that, holding on to her parents’ ship was more important. She was pulling, pulling, yes, she could feel the repulsorlift engines beginning to yield to her power, pulling, pulling, aaahhh, not quite enough, pull harder, _make_ it come to her— _dammit,_ she thought, anger rising, _why aren’t I strong enough?! Why can’t I be stronger—?!_

The fear and the rage were cresting within her, and they hurt. Oh, they hurt! Why did holding on always have to hurt so much?! And the hurt was making her more afraid, more furious, and she reached out harder, straining further forwards than she ever had before. Yes, she could feel the power that she needed, just there, a hairsbreadth from the tips of her fingers, bright and shining with promise, sparking like fire, _like electricity_ —

“Let go, Rey. Let. Go.” Ben…?

“No!” Was he saying something to her again…?

“Yes.”

She let go. And watched as her parents’ ship escaped Jakku’s gravity well and jumped to hyperspace.

“You did well,” Ben said.

Rey fell into his arms, burying a face sticky with snot and tears into the soft, black synthfabric of his shirt. She wasn’t her child self anymore, but her parents were still gone—

“No, they’re still out there,” Ben said, replying to her unvoiced thoughts. “Or, rather, they are now. Thanks to you.”

Then he kissed her, and for a brief but beautiful moment Rey forgot about everything else. She didn’t even need to pull him in closer because they were already one, completely one, and for once in her life, he didn’t disappear, and she wasn’t being left behind. She had everything she wanted.

***

She can feel them. Her parents. They are alive but hidden, and she doesn’t know where in the galaxy they are to be found. She _will_ find them. Eventually. She’s certain of that.

She is patient. After all, she doesn’t need them anymore.

And that was the secret that Ben showed her, his gift to her. Changing the past. Making a better future. But only if one learns to let go first. She’s still working on that.

She still cannot feel Ben either…or, at least, not when she’s awake. When she reaches out for him—nothing, nothing, nothing. He is not with her; he does not come to her; and he does not take her hand across the vastness of space. No matter what she does or how hard she focuses her mind, Ben, and Ben alone, is a void. An emptiness in the universe that had once been full. An emptiness inside of her.

But she is patient, and she continues moving forwards. Someday. Someday, when she has learned to truly let go—Ben will be returned to her.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to the exchange on January 16, 2020.


End file.
